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On an August visit to Nigeria, I spoke and served as a resource person to Nigerian leaders at two missions conferences (the Christian Missionary Foundation (CMF) and Full Stature Missions International). As often occurs with these visits, I gained far more than I contributed. I came away from this trip enriched by the Nigerian Christians with whom I had served, extraordinarily challenged and encouraged in several areas.

ZEAL FOR THE LORD. The Nigerians I met worshipped by offering their whole selves to God. They prayed loudly, sang vigorously and confessed emotionally. In several meetings I thought of David’s dance before the Lord—a delightful worship characterized by reckless, selfless abandon—unlike my typical worship experience, which is often subdued, self-conscious and preoccupied with maintaining control.

In these Nigerian brothers and sisters, I saw Christians literally living out the Psalmist’s words that “zeal for your house consumes me” (Ps. 69:9). They prayed in unison, earnestly seeking God’s direction. They listened in worship with a sense of anticipation. They celebrated with wild joy that made me think of C.S. Lewis’ description of Aslan as a “good lion, but not a tame lion.” Their worship was not tame.

After several hours of praise at the CMF 20th anniversary celebration, I was literally exhausted—an experience I seldom have in American worship services. Every language or people group represented at the conference led an indigenous song (usually related to God’s saving power in Jesus Christ) accompanied by dance.

The skeptic might ask, “Is this just emotion?” or “Does the emotion expressed in worship get translated into daily living?” The Nigerian leaders I met are acutely aware of and concerned about this danger. As a result, there are frequent exhortations to repent and to pursue practical holiness. I’ll let them deal with the problems of excessive zeal; I wish we had more of this problem in North American churches!

EXPECTATION. When the Nigerians pray, they really expect God to speak. When they pray for an unreached people group, they anticipate some will be called out to go. And these folks really believe that God will work miracles.

In each conference the returning missionaries shared stories of how God worked, performed miracles and visited people in dreams. Many testimonies included stories of signs and wonders, healings and visions, and power encounters against Muslim or animist spiritual forces. The CMF team in Togo celebrated the fact that church planting had gone forward after “four different people were raised from the dead and tow warring villages were reconciled.”

I found no debate about whether Mark 16:9ff appeared in the earliest manuscripts or if the miracles of the first century were for today. These people live in hardship and environments of blatant spiritual warfare. They don’t have our postmodern luxury of relegating biblical miracles to Bible times. If the Bible records stories about miracles happening then, they believe miracles can happen NOW. And they do! I found my own lack of expectation rebuked.

RUGGED FAITH. Almost all the Nigerians I met—missionaries and ministers alike—were tentmakers or bivocational. They are pastors but run their own Internet Cafe, repair cars, farm, do medical work or serve as verterinarians. They are a tough, hard-working lot.

When they go out as missionaries or into the ministry, they expect difficulties and the need to create their own income sources. Many of their testimonies are stories of God’s last minute deliverance with miracles or food, medicine, finance or healing.

I learned from the testimonies and prayers something of the raw commitment and faith that must have accompanied those first missionaries to Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. More than a few times, I sensed I was living in a chapter of Acts from the first century.

One of my principle hosts at the Full Stature Missions conference, Pastor Gboyega Ogunsola, explained: “Brother Paul, here in Nigeria we need to have rugged faith. We need to trust God for everything. We need to trust God for petrol to drive our cars. We need to pray that the electrical power will work. We pray that we will not be robbed on the highway. And when people are sick, we cannot depend on medicine and doctors and clinics like you do. We got to God and cry out people to be healed.”

DESTINY. The Nigerians I met trace their involvement in missions to a divine sense of calling or destiny—something I fear we in the WEst forget or reduce to common sense. At the CMF convention they sang with great conviction their sense of mission destiny (to the tune of “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name”): “Let every believer rise up to proclaim Christ as Lord and all Africa shall be saved to crown him Lord of all.”

In the book, The Church is Much Bigger Than You Think, Patrick Johnstone challenges the reader that “there is a you-shaped hole in God’s kingdom. Find it and fill it.” In these Nigerian believers I saw people earnestly desiring to understand their unique destiny from God and fulfill it. In CMF’s missionary commissioning service we prayed off Nigerian couples and families heading for the first time to China, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania and the Sudan.

I’m sure the Nigerian church has multiple challenges, but my purpose here is to report the stimulation and exhortation that my Nigerian brothers and sisters were to my worship, zeal and commitement to cross-cultural missions.

Scottish church historian Andrew Walls often states his belief that the church in Africa will lead the mission endeavor in the world into this new millennium. If he is correct, Nigerian will be at the front of the parade.

October 4, 2002